


A Son of the Circus

by luthorienne



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Past Child Abuse, description of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-07-17
Packaged: 2018-02-09 04:48:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1969626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luthorienne/pseuds/luthorienne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Tony meets Clint's family and has his fortune told.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Son of the Circus

He found the place on a dead-end street that trailed off into a vacant lot full of scrub palmetto. A ribbon of crazed and broken sidewalk led from the macadam parking lot through a half-hearted and yellowing lawn fringed with a scattering of citrus trees, pendulous with grimy fruit. As he picked his way toward the pink-stucco building, a stooped and birdlike old lady with overbright eyes admonished him cheerfully to “mind his step”, offering him a ragged half grapefruit, the pink-jeweled interior belying the dull and leathery skin. Tony declined with what he hoped was a polite smile. 

Inside, a suspicious-looking woman who had clearly never read People magazine’s Most Eligible Bachelor issue (or she would have been much nicer to Tony) directed him to a lounge where he sat in a molded plastic chair placed strategically in the path of a slowly-oscillating floor fan, and waited for someone to fetch William Carson.

 

“He was a sweet kid,” the man in the chair wheezed. “The brother, he had a hard edge to him, but the little one was just a damn nice kid.” 

Tony Stark shifted uncomfortably in the plastic chair by the old man’s wheelchair in the lounge. He didn’t like the place: he didn’t like the way it smelled, and he didn’t like the way the cheap vinyl flooring was lifting around the base of the cabinets, and he didn’t like the way the staff was talking over the old folks’ heads, like they were things, not people. Still – this was for Clint.

“You remember him well, Mr. Carson?”

“Sure I do. I’m just old; I ain’t lost it. They turned up one night late, just as we was pullin’ up stakes. Both of ‘em thin and dirty and tryin’ to look taller than they was, and the little one, he had a bruise around his wrist, I remember that. He had on a red and blue plaid shirt, and the sleeves was too short. He kept trying to pull ‘em down to cover that bruise, I remember that like it was this morning. Lookin’ around with them scared eyes. Tell the truth, that damn bruise is why I took ‘em on. Circus ain’t no place for a kid with a home, who’s maybe had a dust-up with his old man and lit out for spite. But these kids – Well, I’m tellin’ you, Mr. Stark, you got to grab a kid some hard to leave a mark like that. And even the big one, there was somethin’ in his eyes…” He trailed off, stared into space for a moment, then shook his head. “Anyhow, I figured we’d give ‘em a decent meal and a safe place to sleep and see who turned up lookin’ for ‘em. Funny thing, though – a week goes by, and nobody’s lookin’ for ‘em. No cops, no family, no school, even. I forget where we was – Idaho, or Montana, or –“

“Iowa,” Tony supplied. The old man nodded.

“Could-a been. One more fairground in the big empty middle of the country, anyhow. Wherever it was, nobody come after ‘em, and me and Stanley and Rollie and Frieda talked it over and we figured that said somethin’ about where they come from. So we figured, maybe it’d be rough with us, but at least if one of ‘em up and disappeared, we’d look for ‘em, you know what I’m sayin’?” He shook his head again, quirked a half-smile. “And Frieda, she just took one look at the little one and she fell in love, you know? The older one – what the hell was his name? Bobby? Bernie?”

“Barney.”

“Yeah, that sounds right. Barney, he was a tough guy. Maybe pretending to start with, but it got to be real soon enough. He took some care of the little fellow, but soon’s some of the others stepped up and took over, he was glad enough to be shed of him. Aww, that ain’t fair, maybe – he was only a kid himself, ‘way too young to be responsible for his brother. I guess I’m harder on him than I should be, ‘cause of how it turned out with him.” He coughed into a none-too-clean handkerchief. “Thing was – he didn’t have no _character,_ that Barney. You’d give him a chore to do, and he’d do as much as he had to, and not a lick more. ‘Bout half the time, he’d slough half of the work off to the little guy. And Clint, well, he was like a little monkey – here, there, everywhere, tryin’ to be part of everything, tryin’ to be useful. Followed Jim Stanley everywhere like a shadow. Fell in love with that damn tiger Jim used to haul around – she was so old, she wasn’t hardly much of an attraction any more, but them rubes in Flatland never seen no tiger, so she was a big deal to them. An’ Clint, well, Jim used to say she looked at him like he was one of her lost cubs. I used to worry she was lookin’ at him like lunch, but she never so much as growled at him. She like to tore the arm off one of the roustabouts one time, mind you, so it wasn’t that she didn’t have it in her – but then, he was a mean sonofabitch and who knows what he done to her first? Or so Jim Stanley said, anyhow…”

“He mentioned Mr. Stanley to me once,” Tony said. “Is he retired as well?” 

“Son, Jim Stanley is dead, I’m sorry to say. We had to break up the circus a couple years after young Clint went off to war. Jim, he had a daughter living in Chicago, and he went to stay with her. We kep’ in touch ‘til he went into hospital the last time. He had the cancer in his bones. His daughter, she sends me a card ever’ Christmas. Come to visit me once, couple years back. Nice little girl. Married some kind of a bookkeeper.”

“You mentioned Frieda?”

“Frieda Wilson. Yeah. Me an’ Frieda, we was together for goin’ on forty years.” He was silent a moment, then dug in a hip pocket for a tattered wallet. He pulled out a brittle and yellowing cellophane cardfolder and flipped it open to a candid snapshot of a plain woman in her forties, wearing jeans and sneakers and a red-and-white checked blouse, laughing as she operated a fairground ride for a group of obviously-excited children. Tony found himself smiling at the picture.

“She looks like a nice lady,” he said, passing it back. Carson studied it, nodded.

“She was a saint,” he said simply. Then he shook his head. “Well, sometimes she could be the devil, if you got her mad, but she put up with me for forty years, so I figure God must-a cut her a lot of slack.” Tony smiled ruefully as Carson tucked his wallet away. If that was how it worked, Pepper could probably be a mass murderess and still be assured of a place at God’s right hand.

“Clint remembers her very fondly,” he said. Carson smiled.

“Yeah, I s’pose he would. She taught him his numbers, mended his clothes, helped him save his money. Made sure he done his lessons – she used to get ‘em by mail. Got him work and a safe place to stay when we was in winter quarters a couple times. We’d-a had him with us, but hell, half the time we didn’t know where we was going to be, ourselves. But she was happy long as she knew he was fixed up.” He quirked a half smile. “Frieda’s ex come around the lot one time, give her a hard time. Clint pinned him to the back of one of the game booths with one of Duquesne’s knives, and Carlo, he was one of the clowns, he took ‘im aside for a talk. He didn’t come around no more after that.” He was silent a moment. “Frieda passed about two years ago. Bad lungs. She didn’t weigh a hundred pounds at the end, but you couldn’t stop her smilin’.”

“And there was another lady – Madame Zoltar?”

Carson nodded. 

“Yeah. That wasn’t her real name. Her real name’s Elizabeth Horvath. Hungarian, or Romanian. Hungarian, I think. Told fortunes. Damn good at it. People’d drive half a day to get their fortune told by Madame Zoltar. Not always good fortunes, neither, but she’d take the time an’ talk to the people. Built a good line. Made her tent look popular, even when the crowd was thin on the bannerline. Once she come in with us, Clint started to eat real good. She kinda took him over, far as feedin’ went. Made him go to church.” He chuckled. “He used to ask the damnedest questions about God. Used to make her mad, sometimes. Sometimes I think he done it on purpose. He was a sweet kid, but he had a streak of mischief in him, you know?”

“I know,” Tony agreed. “He still has it.”

“Not meanness, but just stirrin’ things up. Like a boy should do. Betty, she’s still doin’ good, she’s in a Catholic old folks’ home over on the north side of town. Christ knows how old she is, but she still walks a couple miles a day, and you bet she keeps them old folks hoppin’. And the priests, too, I don’t doubt. Still tells the odd fortune, too, if she takes a likin’ to you, or so she says. Her and me, we get together every couple months, have an ice cream and talk about the old days. Her old man was a flyer – not too good at it. He took a fall back in the seventies, died a few years later. “

“I guess she didn’t tell his fortune,” Tony said. Carson smiled a little in acknowledgement of his joke, but shook his head. 

“I don’t know about that, but Betty’s got somethin’. It maybe ain’t second sight, but it’s somethin’.”

“You think she’d like to see Clint?”

“Son, she’d love to see Clint, and so would I. Only – I know he’s big news now. I don’t want him thinkin’ we’re suckin’ around now because he’s famous. Me and Frieda and Betty, and old Rollie – he had the band, done some ringmaster work if I was laid up – we didn’t know how to find him, and then when we see all the news about New York, we didn’t want to call him up, tradin’ on old times. Hell, Rollie’s in a lodge up the coast, half the time he don’t know his own name, but I bet he’d love to see Clint. Him and Clint, they used to juggle shit – like to drive us all crazy. “

“He won’t think that,” Tony promised. “I know he’d love to see you all. “ He rose and shook the old man’s hand. “I’ll set it up, and we’ll talk in a couple of days, okay? And you can let me know who’ll be available.”

“Hell, ever’body who’s still alive will be available, if they can afford to come,” Carson said. 

“Don’t worry about that; I’ll fix it up.” Tony smiled. “Thanks, Mr. Carson. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”

Carson regarded him curiously.

“Good to meet you, too, Mr. Stark,” he said. “I’m glad to know young Clint has good friends.”

 

There had been two cakes: one shaped like a sleek white building, surrounded by green icing lawns, a swimming pool, shady chocolate benches and flower beds, “Frieda Wilson Retirement Home” written across the roof in red piping; the second a smiling and uncaged tiger, lounging regally next to a sign that read, “James M. Stanley Big Cat Sanctuary”. Both cakes had been pretty thoroughly demolished. Pepper had made a speech, in the middle of which Tony had jumped up, handed over two big cheques, and said, “That’s enough speeches, Pep; let’s eat.” There had been tears, laughter, amazement – and now Clint’s first friends were standing around in groups of three or four, making plans to move, only just realizing that “old age” and “poverty” might not be synonyms from now on. Tony’s hand ached from being shaken ‘way too much, and he had been hugged more than he’d ever been hugged before – at least twice by people with more than the usual complement of appendages. His cheeks ached from trying to suppress his grin. Clint had finally stopped trying to say ‘thank you’ a couple of hours ago, but Tony expected they’d be revisiting that later. He planned to be way too busy in his workshop to have that conversation.

The party was winding down, now, a few couples still on the dance floor – Pepper doing a surprisingly- brisk foxtrot with someone named Shorty; Bruce dancing rather gingerly with a matronly lady who, if the posters were to be believed, had once been The Luscious Lucinda, Toast of the Flying Trapeze. Across the room, Clint was sitting between Mr. Carson and a rather homely girl who had been introduced as Jim Stanley’s daughter, all three of them talking at once, and all three of them holding hands. Clint’s eyes were red-rimmed still, but Tony had never seen him smiling so widely. A success, then.

He turned to Madame Zoltar, who had been watching him while he had been watching Clint. He’d been curious to meet her, expecting someone tall and imposing. Tall, she was not – the top of her head just about cleared Clint’s shoulder – but she was definitely imposing, carrying herself like royalty, and wearing an austere expression framed by poufs of thick, iron-gray hair. She and Clint had had their tearful reunion early on, Tony watching carefully as they withdrew to a quiet corner where they talked earnestly for nearly twenty minutes, Clint clasping her hands in both of his. That the old woman was fond of him was unmistakable: she’d caressed his cheek and kissed him more than once, and as for Clint, happiness at seeing her had been all but shining out of him. But surprisingly, when others had come up to claim Clint’s attention, she had come across to sit with Tony. He checked out her eagle-like profile as she turned to look at Clint. 

“The Angel still walks with him,” she said softly. Tony looked at her curiously, but before he could ask her to elaborate, she took his hand. Her hands were seamed, papery and dry. She turned his palm upwards.

“I will tell to you your fortune,” she said magnificently, Hungarian accent heavy in the air. He smiled – Mr. Carson said that meant she liked you. He felt a little bit as if the in-laws had pronounced their approval. 

“You have lived your life in terrible poverty, Mr. Stark,” she said sonorously, stroking his hand gently. “Each day, you have starved, living on the scraps of life. You have struggled much.” He glanced at her, trying not to grin. Clearly, she had no idea she was talking to a billionaire. She reached up a hand to cup his cheek, smiling indulgently. “You do not see this. But I see it clearly. You are a waif. But you must take heart, for you are about to come into great wealth, wealth beyond your imagining.” She glanced down at his hand, then sidelong at Clint, before she took his fingers and closed them on his palm, as if folding the treasure into his hand. “Guard it carefully. It will sustain you when trouble comes.” She reached out and patted his cheek gently, peering into his eyes. “You are a good man.”

“Not according to the press,” he said, smiling. She shook her head.

“A good man,” she said firmly. “Deserving of riches. I have seen it.”

“I’m very flawed,” he said, suddenly not wanting to lie to this lady. “Just ask anybody.”

“A good man is not perfect,” she replied. “A good man fears, he hungers, he grows weary. But still he works to make a better world. This is you. You are a good man.” She was silent a moment, then patted his hand and stood up, a very tall lady for only five feet’s stature. “And I will tell your immediate future,” she said. “You will dance with me, now. “ 

And it turned out that her prediction was completely accurate.

**Author's Note:**

> From my discarded writings:
> 
>  
> 
> _“The circus is the first place you were a star,” Tony said softly, petting Clint’s sweat-damp hair. He could smell the pungent reek of drugs over the musk of sweat and the dry, antiseptic tang of the dressings and bandages. He felt, rather than heard, Clint’s snort of laughter at that._
> 
>  
> 
> _“Firs’ place I was_ anything, _” he replied, pausing to lick his battered lips. “They di’n’t have anything, neither,” he said. “An’ some of ‘em weren’ very good people.” He sighed. “I know that. But. There were good ones, too. There were.” He looked up at Tony imploringly._
> 
>  
> 
> _“’Course there were,” Tony reassured him. “They looked after you.”_
> 
>  
> 
> _“Yeah.” He was silent a long moment. “They fed me. An’ got me clo’s. An’ books. Frieda useta help me do homework. We’d play school, Frieda an’ me an’ the Correlli twins. An’ Barney, sometimes. One-a the joeys taught me to read music. Mr. Stanley, he useta tell me about Africa an’ India. ‘N’ Australia. Don’ think he ever went there, but he knew about ‘em. “ He rubbed his red-rimmed eyes childishly. “They weren’t billionaires an’ they weren’t geniuses.”_
> 
>  
> 
> _“But they were special,” Tony said. “Because they were yours.”_


End file.
